A Bug's Life Characters:
The Circus Bugs
In the Pixar movie, A Bug's Life, Flik arrives at Bug City looking for tough bugs to confront the grasshoppers back at Ant Island. He comes across a tavern where some tough bugs are being tossed out for bad behavior and thinks he's found the place.
Flik makes his rounds, talking to the bar patrons if they know anybody who would be interested in his quest. The Circus Troupe, who have just been fired and are feeling down on their luck overhear Flik and think he's a talent scout. Let's find out who each of these Bug's Life characters are...
Francis
Poor Francis has a name that is traditionally for females and is a ladybug. Francis is also a male and to make up for these wimpy, emasculating attributes, he's a real tough guy. He won't hesitate to hurl insults at anybody who mistakes him for a pretty lady. In the circus troupe, Francis is a clown and is good friends with Heimlich the caterpillar and Slim the walking stick bug.
Francis is the bug who helps save Dot from the bird attack, but injures his leg in the process. While his leg heals, he becomes motherly toward all the Blueberry troop ants and bonds closely to them.
Dim
Dim's name is appropriate. He's a large blue rhinoceros beetle and despite his intimidating size, he's quite child-like. Dim gets scared easily and Rosie, the black widow spider, takes good care of him as a mother would. Dim is the one who carries most of the bugs who cannot fly.
Gypsy
Gypsy is the beautiful gypsy moth with beautiful, mesmerizing pattern on her wings. She's Manny's wife and lovely assistant for his magic shows. Their best known act is a metamorphosis act that she later performs to switch places with the Queen to help her escape from Hopper.
Heimlich
Hugely fat and green with a great appetite for comforting food, Heimlich is my personal favorite of the circus bugs. The sound effects for him when he blumps around almost like a walrus are really hilarious.
Heimlich has a German accent and always has food on his mind and in his mouth. He dreams of becoming a beautiful butterfly and at the end of A Bug's Life, he does come out of a cocoon, but with wings far too tiny to carry his still-huge body.
Manny
Great and mysterious magician of the PT Flea Circus Troupe, Manny is a praying mantis. In A Bug's Life Manny has hands instead of creepier-looking claws and spines real praying mantises have on their front legs.
Manny's looked up to for his wisdom and is married to Gypsy, his lovely assistant in his magic act. Manny's most famous act is called "The Chinese Cabinet of Metamorphosis" where Gypsy switches places with a hand-chosen volunteer inside an old Chinese food take-away box and the audience thinks the volunteer has transformed into a beautiful moth.
At first Manny does not care much for Flik, but over time grows to like him. He plays an important role in helping to rescue the Queen by performing his metamorphosis act for the grasshoppers, sneaking the Queen away as part of the act.
Rosie
Rosie is a motherly figure, caring for Dim the rhino beetle, and is a black widow spider. In the P.T. Flea circus, Rosie is the animal tamer and acrobat.
Slim
A reluctant clown in the bug circus, Slim is a walking stick bug. He's an intelligent actor, but never gets an opportunity to showcase his talents because he's always being typecast as a pole, a broom or a stick. P.T. Flea won't change his mind, though, and keeps him on as a clown. Slim is rather mellow and is good friends with Francis, who carries him around since he doesn't have wings.
Tuck and Roll
I adore these guys too. Tuck and Roll are pill bugs! How great is it that Pixar thought to include pill bugs in A Bug's Life. Tuck and Roll are acrobats and act as cannon balls. They don't talk much, but when they do it's in a garbled language and they sometimes repeat phrases in English which gets them into trouble. I love the facial expressions Tuck and Roll have, especially the grins on their faces as they look at one another like, "I have NO idea what that bug is talking about!"
P.T. Flea
Named after the real circus man P.T. Barnum, P.T. Flea is the ringmaster for the Bug Circus and he's greedy, bossy and obsessed with money. P.T. Flea gets the fly audience all riled up when they complain about the quality of the show and the fact that they won't get any refunds.
P.T.'s grand finale is the "Flaming Death" which involves lighting matches end on end, and he burns himself to a crisp. It's the only part of the show that the flies enjoy. As a result, P.T. Flea fires his circus troupe.
Later on in A Bug's Life, when he comes around to Ant Island and finds his missing circus troupe, he mistakes the model bird for a real one and uses the "Flaming Death" act to set the bird on fire, ruining the plot.
All movie stills are copyright Pixar/Disney
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